Ex-Aide: Edwards Asked Me to "Steal" Dirty Diaper to Conduct DNA Test

January 21, 2010

Credit: ABC News

John Edwards' former campaign aide Andrew Young is lashing out at the ex-presidential candidate, 56, for waiting so long to admit that he fathered mistress Rielle Hunter's nearly 2-year-old daughter, Quinn.

"I think those were words, empty words," he tells ABC News of Edwards' bombshell confession Thursday. "If that is what he wanted to say, he should have said it two years ago. And there has been plenty of time...Now I think it's just a PR campaign."

In his ABC News interview, Young says Edwards proposed the elaborate cover-up to hide the fact that he fathered Hunter's baby. Initially, Young publicly stated that he was the child's father -- which Hunter never denied.

"The senator made the full pitch," Young says in the interview. "Not just for me. I mean he didn't just have to convince me that I was going to take paternity. He also had to convince Rielle that she would publicly claim that I had been the father."

Young says that Edwards, not convinced that he was the dad, asked him to steal one of his daughter's dirty diapers as part of a DNA strategy.

"Get a doctor to fake the DNA results," Young said Edwards told him. "And he asked me ... to steal a diaper from the baby so he could secretly do a DNA test to find out if this [was] indeed his child."